Dan and I are totally in love with Grand-mere, or "ba", in Vietnamese. She smiles all day long and has a heart of gold. She has three children and six grand children, who are now grown and like to come one by one to see her and spend time with her. Since Dan and I have lived here, two of her granddaughters have already come and spent one afternoon with her, reading and chatting, that's two different times I mean.When she was young, Grand-mere was a preschool teacher and she loves kids to this day. She is still in touch with some of her old students who are now in their fifties - sixities. During the Vietnam war, she was helping kids leave the country through a network in the country side: for this she received war medals and even met uncle Ho in person. she is thirty years old on the picture above and of course, she is smiling.Grand-mere likes to read, cook rice a lot, feed the cat (she calls him "meow meow", lol) and clean the floor. It is not rare than, when looking for grand-mere, I find her hidden under a desk or a table, cleaning the floor away with a piece of cloth. It is not so hard for her to disappear under furniture: she is 1.35 meters tall :) She reads a lot too, all day long she carries this huge book, bigger than her, which she puts in front of her on a little book rest and then she starts reading and muttering at the same time, following the lines with her finger. Adorable.She also like to rearrange fans every 5 minutes to make sure they blow air right on us. We thank her in Vietnamese which makes her laugh and she repeats the action a few minutes later. She also get hot water ready for me all the time as she has noticed that I like green tea. In summary, she is so damn nice to us all the time and so cute too that we are a little bit in love with her. We try to cmmunicate with her as much as we can, however she only knows one french word: Manger! (eat) and one english word: Thank you. :) Most of the time we communicate anyway, as our Vietnamese is coming along, but it often ends in laughter and calling Mme Dzung to the rescue.The other day she was bending over the sink, doing some dishes, when Dan and I took her by the hand to the sofa in the lounge room. She was looking a little puzzled, not too sure what we were up to. Dan brought her her book and I brought her some tea, and then we both reajusted the fan so it was right in front of her. She laughed for a good minute, and honestly so did we. We did the dishes and she was not allowed to move from the sofa. It's awesome to joke around with her beacsue she has a clear hearty laugh which she uses a lot! When she tries to force feed us a tenth bowl of rice, we now discreetly try to serve her instead of us, when she's not looking: the first time we tried she laughed so much we thought that was a real winner so now it's on :)When she drinks, instead of saying 'cheers' she says "I am lucky to drink this", before she eats she says that too: when I ask her how she likes her book, she says she's incredibly happy to learn, and when i just ask how she is, she always says she is happy.That's who Grand mere is.